# Demjanjuk gets 94 minutes per Jew? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 13, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812 "2011-05-13T18:25:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/41 "2011-05-15T02:44:50Z")
How odd, I would have said 94 minutes per _person._ ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/42 "2011-05-15T03:10:44Z")
> [@astro](#): > > To continue to chase after him at this stage, when he is a feeble 91 year man teetering on deaths door does not seem to be as much about justice as it is about pure vengance. If perfect justice isn’t on the menu, vengeance will do. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/43 "2011-05-15T03:19:43Z")
The whole thing really strikes me as very pointless and I hate the Nazis as much as anybody else. It seems like they are desperate to punish a Nazi, _any_ Nazi, even if they have to scrape the barrel to such an extent that the only guy they can find is not even a Nazi, not even a soldier, but the lowest level functionary you can possibly be without being an outright prisoner. I mean, let’s be honest: there were Jews who were given positions of “authority” in the death camps, and ultimately helped carry out the killing of their fellow Jews, and nobody is proposing that _those_ people be punished. As far as I can tell, this guy was in the same position, except that he wasn’t Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/44 "2011-05-15T04:04:51Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > there were Jews who were given positions of “authority” in the death camps, and ultimately helped carry out the killing of their fellow Jews, and nobody is proposing that _those_ people be punished. As far as I can tell, this guy was in the same position, except that he wasn’t Jewish. I don’t believe that is a valid comparison. The Kapos were killed by the Nazis after a certain period of servitude. They only kept themselves alive for a short period of time by collecting gold fillings and such. I agree that they were odious. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/45 "2011-05-15T04:15:26Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > It seems like they are desperate to punish a Nazi, _any_ Nazi, even if they have to scrape the barrel to such an extent that the only guy they can find is not even a Nazi, not even a soldier, but the lowest level functionary you can possibly be without being an outright prisoner. And I see nothing wrong with that. It must never happen again. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/46 "2011-05-15T04:25:19Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > He’s complicit. FULL STOP. I guess you didn’t bother to read the link I provided, did you? Lazy jerk. > "Previous testimony from others who were at Trawniki show that everyone knew what their job was to be: Human extermination through a series of death camps that were just being established. > > **These Ukrainians received better food, better treatment, ranks, official leaves from duty, and guns.**" > > I can’t fucking _believe_ some of you people. Jesus _fuck_, you apologists make me sick. I didn’t say a single thing regarding his complicity. This is something you’re obviously not rational about but it can be discussed without labeling people as Nazi apologists. Your link says that they got better food after volunteering. So? Your comment was still stupid. The choice he was faced with was not bad food vs. better food and its dishonest to pretend it was. P.S. Your grandfather-in-law’s experience as a German in an Allied camp was not remotely equivalent to that of a Slav in a German camp. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/47 "2011-05-15T05:10:41Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > And I see nothing wrong with that. > > It must never happen again. Well, it did happen again. It’s been happening all over the world. And it will keep happening. And generally, nobody ever does anything to stop it - this is a fact of life. But the way to stop it is to stop the mass-murderers _in the act_ of killing, or better, to deal with them before they can even start. When the Holocaust happened, the world did nothing. America turned away Jews on the S.S. St. Louis trying to escape the Nazis - turned them back to Europe where they were killed. The Allies could have bombed the railways leading to the concentration camps and they didn’t. And, of course, America and England could have stopped the Nazis _before_ they carried out their mass murder…and they didn’t. Now, more than half a century later, people want to feel “justice” somehow, so they find one ridiculously old man who was tangentially connected to the Nazi war machine, and they make a big issue of “punishing” him as if doing so will solve a single fucking thing. IT WON’T. It just makes them look bad for going after such an old guy, especially one whose connection to the killing seems very tenuous. Stop evil _while it is happening._ Nothing, not a goddamn thing, that you do _after_ the graves are filled, will bring any “justice.” ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/48 "2011-05-15T06:09:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > And I see nothing wrong with that. > > It must never happen again. As \*\*Argent \*\*said, it has happened again, several times and will continue to do so and no ammount of sentencing for Demjanjuk would change that. If you kill/help kill thousands and the only penalty you get is serving your last years in a confortable German prison, 66 years after the fact, then the lesson is that you can almpost completely get away with genocide. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/49 "2011-05-15T06:34:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > And I see nothing wrong with that. > > It must never happen again. Here’s what is wrong with it. They are going after one of the smallest functionaries in the system and ignoring a lot of the bigger criminals. And they’ve done this since the war ended. If we want this to stop and never happen again, everyone involved has to be prosecuted no matter how their involvement compares with that of Himmler and Hitler. Not just Eichmann, but every guard on the train to Auschwitz must be prosecuted. Anyone who knew and aided. What is so disappointing about this episode is that justice in this particular case is so late and screwed up with decades of prosecutorial misconduct. If ever there was a case where being misprosecuted for being “Ivan the Terrible” is somewhat excusable, this is it. Yep, the guy is was a camp guard and probably deserves to have his life screwed up in this judicial hell for a quarter century. But it really should be everyone who participated in any way. This prosecution was really pathetic. Justice Jackson is probably rolling in his grave. Now I’m going to go find Werner Von Braun’s grave and take a dump on it. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/50 "2011-05-15T06:56:03Z")
> [@astro](#): > > To dial him to 11 as the apex of Nazi evil supervillans in this context because he was “complicit” seems a bit over the top. We’re running out of Nazi supervillains. I expect, sometime before I die, to see a headline, “Last NAZI supervillain dies!” I’ll also note that very few of the Germans who were convicted of war crimes or genocide who were not actually hanged died in prison. Releases due to old age or ill health were prevelant. Is there some particular reason that Demanjuk should die in prison when Speer didn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/51 "2011-05-15T07:17:27Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > We’re running out of Nazi supervillains. I expect, sometime before I die, to see a headline, “Last NAZI supervillain dies!” > > I’ll also note that very few of the Germans who were convicted of war crimes or genocide who were not actually hanged died in prison. Releases due to old age or ill health were prevelant. > > Is there some particular reason that Demanjuk should die in prison when Speer didn’t? Without wanting to derail the thread, but who’s the “biggest” Nazi still out there, watering his roses in obscurity? ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/52 "2011-05-15T07:27:01Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Without wanting to derail the thread, but who’s the “biggest” Nazi still out there, watering his roses in obscurity? The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2010 report on [Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals](http://www.operationlastchance.org/PDF/ASR-2010.pdf) includes a “most wanted” list. At the top is [Alois Brunner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Brunner), who the report describes as “the most important unpunished Nazi war criminal who may still be alive”. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/53 "2011-05-15T18:10:02Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2010 report on [Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals](http://www.operationlastchance.org/PDF/ASR-2010.pdf) includes a “most wanted” list. > > At the top is [Alois Brunner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Brunner), who the report describes as “the most important unpunished Nazi war criminal who may still be alive”. Thanks for the information. Brunner is almost 100, in 10 or 15 years the Nazis will all be dead. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/54 "2011-05-15T18:29:16Z")
I find it a little telling that some people in this thread have gone absolutely ape shit and fanatical in their suggestion that all these facts about Demjanjuk make him the worst kind of Nazi murderer. Since no one on these forums sat as triers of fact in his trials, none of us possess access to any special information about the guy. The information that is publicly available, is pretty much all contested and there’s little to resolve it other than gut-level judgment calls. Additionally if you look at the history of the charges against Demjanjuk and the investigations of him going back to the 70s I think we’ve now said he’s been 2-3 different individuals (one of those identities ascribed to him resulted in his death sentence in Israel which was later overturned when an Israeli appeals court found reasonable doubt as to whether he was that identity at all, and subsequently very few people believe Demjanjuk was “Ivan the Terrible”) and had served in like 7 different concentration camps. Considering how often we (the collective we) have gotten it wrong, I’m not necessarily ready to accept with any certainty _anything_ about Demjanjuk. The truth of the matter is the Eastern front of WWII was pretty much the greatest devastation the world has ever known, vast numbers of people were wiped out, it was by far the largest conventional military theater in the history of the world. Over 15 million persons were involved in active combat roles, entire towns were wiped out. Hundreds of thousands to millions were pressed into service by the Red Army or the Wehrmacht, and some people were pressed into service by both at different points in the war. Some individuals volunteered for one, got captured and forced into fighting for the other side. It basically created such an insane trail of varying names, ranks, postings, and et cetera that I’m highly suspicious of anyone who talks with absolute certainty about this case and I think those people probably have an axe to grind. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/55 "2011-05-15T20:03:20Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Insult me all you like, but I strongly reject and resent being called an ultra-nationalist. Nowhere in this thread have I given my opinion on this, I’ve only tried to explain the differences in the legal system. If that makes me a douche bag to you, okay, but I’m not a nationalist. Oh, I’m sure you do resent being called that. However when I observe someone who pretty much shits on everything one country does no matter what, and always offers up the example of their own country as an ideal to be emulated, that is nationalism. ---
**Author:** ![Zelski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@Zelski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zelski)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/56 "2011-05-15T22:00:21Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I find it a little telling that some people in this thread have gone absolutely ape shit and fanatical in their suggestion that all these facts about Demjanjuk make him the worst kind of Nazi murderer. > > Since no one on these forums sat as triers of fact in his trials, none of us possess access to any special information about the guy. The information that is publicly available, is pretty much all contested and there’s little to resolve it other than gut-level judgment calls. Additionally if you look at the history of the charges against Demjanjuk and the investigations of him going back to the 70s I think we’ve now said he’s been 2-3 different individuals (one of those identities ascribed to him resulted in his death sentence in Israel which was later overturned when an Israeli appeals court found reasonable doubt as to whether he was that identity at all, and subsequently very few people believe Demjanjuk was “Ivan the Terrible”) and had served in like 7 different concentration camps. Considering how often we (the collective we) have gotten it wrong, I’m not necessarily ready to accept with any certainty _anything_ about Demjanjuk. > > The truth of the matter is the Eastern front of WWII was pretty much the greatest devastation the world has ever known, vast numbers of people were wiped out, it was by far the largest conventional military theater in the history of the world. Over 15 million persons were involved in active combat roles, entire towns were wiped out. Hundreds of thousands to millions were pressed into service by the Red Army or the Wehrmacht, and some people were pressed into service by both at different points in the war. Some individuals volunteered for one, got captured and forced into fighting for the other side. It basically created such an insane trail of varying names, ranks, postings, and et cetera that I’m highly suspicious of anyone who talks with absolute certainty about this case and I think those people probably have an axe to grind. I agree a lot with what is said here. I don’t know that he wasn’t at Sobibor or that he wasn’t complicit. For all I know, he was the one pulling the trigger. But there is so much conflicting information - much of it presented by prosecutors - that I will probably never trust their case against him. They were so sure he was Ivan. Now they are so sure he was “Demyanyuk.” If he somehow wins his appeal (very doubtful) will we see a new case next year where he is accused of working at Auschwitz? There are a lot of people who feel the following about the O.J. Simpson case: the prosecution tried to frame a guilty man. The Demjanjuk case has an analogous feel to it that is unsettling in a way that creates doubt. For example, if the man’s attorneys wished to present a defense that he was not even at Sobibor, could they not have presented all kinds of conflicting information from nation-states and their witnesses (given as sworn testimony) that the man in question couldn’t have been at Sobibor because these people said he was at Treblinka? Eyewitness testimony placed him there. But we know that he was not Ivan the Terrible, despite the woman who said she would never forget his eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/57 "2011-05-15T22:48:00Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2010 report on [Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals](http://www.operationlastchance.org/PDF/ASR-2010.pdf) includes a “most wanted” list. > > At the top is [Alois Brunner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Brunner), who the report describes as “the most important unpunished Nazi war criminal who may still be alive”. “According to The Guardian, he was last seen alive by reliable witnesses in 1992, and by journalists in 1996.” Ha! ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/58 "2011-05-15T23:47:32Z")
> [@Zelski](#): > > … present a defense that … the man in question couldn’t have been at Sobibor because … he was at Treblinka … Worst. Nazi war crime. Legal defense. Ever. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/59 "2011-05-16T00:32:22Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Worst. Nazi war crime. Legal defense. Ever. > > CMC fnord! It’s sounds like “I couldn’t kill that guy because I was killing that chick in another town”, but it also means that all proceeding would have to stop and new charges would have to be filed and the motherfucker ain’t getting any younger. If he was actually at Treblonka and not at Sobibor the time needed for witnesses and evidence would surely by more than his remaining life. ---
**Author:** ![Zelski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c67d28/32.png) [@Zelski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zelski)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812/60 "2011-05-16T00:56:24Z")
The point wasn’t that it was a good defense, it was that such a defense is logically supported by the efforts of the prosecution. _The prosecution_ has said he was at Treblinka. \*The prosecution’s witnesses \*said he was at Treblinka. And now he is convicted of being someone else entirely as it is now known that he was not Ivan at Treblinka. That means that a number of the prosecution’s witnesses are known to not be reliable, nor the prosecution’s general efforts at creating their case. Therefore, the prosecution has cast a very serious cloud of doubt over all of their efforts in relation to this person. All of the evidence seems tainted to me, especially since, as **Martin Hyde** has noted, it has all been contested. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demjanjuk-gets-94-minutes-per-jew/581812.md?page=4)